


The Times They Are A-Changing

by ivanolix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Canon - TV, Canon Compliant, Gen, Happy, Hope, Season/Series 03, Singing, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-10
Updated: 2010-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-24 12:18:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dee takes Gaeta down to a celebration on this new planet, full of hope and joy for them all (and singing).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Times They Are A-Changing

Felix wondered if there were any possible classes he could have taken in war college that would have prepared him for planet colonization. More math, he supposed, but all these variables made his head hurt right now. He groaned and sipped down more coffee. He might be ending up an addict by the time they were all settled.

“Hey you.”

He raised weary eyes to see Dee standing, in military pants but with a casual dark shirt on top. She smiled, arms loosely crossed. “Hey,” he said wearily.

“You look like you need a break.” Her tone was flat as she closed the folder in front of him despite his automatic gurgle of protest.

“Dee, I’ll take a break at supper time, but if I don’t get these done tonight I won’t have the will to finish them...” He trailed off. “What?”

“It’s past suppertime, Felix, and it has been for hours.” Dee rolled her eyes and continued to push the folder of papers out of his eyesight. “It’s even dark down on the planet. Come on, I want someone to go with me and Lee is busy on his ship.”

“Go where?” he asked cautiously, remembering the last time.

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of witnesses.” Her laugh was an innocent gurgle. “There’s a bonfire down on the planet.”

Felix sat bolt upright, blinking. “Bonfire? With wood?”

Her eyes narrowed teasingly. “You weren’t _born_ on a ship, were you? That’s the only kind of bonfire there is.”

If he’d remembered what he was doing before she interrupted him, he could have commented that she thoroughly distracted him from his work. Instead, rising from his seat and starting to pace, he frowned darkly. “Who authorized that? Did they even think that we don’t know what our colony down there will need, and that maybe wood would have to be rationed?”

“Hey,” Dee said again, stopping him with a light push to his chest. “As to the first, it’s our new president. To the second, no, I’m fairly sure he didn’t.”

Felix groaned. “Gaius...” He sometimes forgot that Baltar had been given more power than him.

“ _You_ decided you wanted to be on his cabinet,” Dee remarked, amusedly.

“To keep him in line, partly,” Felix muttered. These indulgences were not part of the plan, not part of any reasonable plan.

“It’s a party, Felix,” Dee said, leaning in so he was looking down into her face instead of at his feet. He couldn’t help but focus when she did that. “Those are good things, remember?”

He took a deep breath, but let it out with a half-laugh, shaking off the weight of paperwork at the back of his mind. “Yes, yes, I remember,” he said with mock-irritation.

“Good,” Dee said with a grin. “So will you accompany me to the festivities?”

“If I must,” Felix sighed, crooking his arm for her.

She chuckled and leaned against him as they walked out, work all forgotten.

***

Felix liked the way his feet crunched over the pebbly dirt on New Caprica. Despite them being bad omens for crop production, the noise and texture were just so very different from the identical metal floors on Galactica. The sharp cool of the night air flooded his nostrils, and he hummed to himself as he and Dee walked from their Raptor towards the bright fire a few hundred yards off.

It took some effort to ignore how much wood was being used extravagantly, but he managed, and the smoke smell brought back warm cozy memories to his mind. Apparently the fire hadn’t been publicized beyond Galactica, given only forty or so people in chairs and on blankets around the high flames. He recognized more than a few pilots, and some of the Resistance they’d newly rescued from Caprica. Dee waved to Helo and walked over to his side of the circle.

Felix stretched out his hands towards the warmth of the flames and smiled a little, closing his eyes and letting the heat waves pass around him, and he remembered the dog days of summer vacation so many years ago.

“So, what’s going on?” Dee asked over the bustle of interrupting conversation and laughter around them.

“Storytelling, that’s all.” Helo offered his large seat for Dee and Felix to share.

“That's a _lie_!” Felix heard a woman’s voice protest laughingly across the circle, and glanced over to see the red-haired co-captain of the C-bucs, waving her finger at Sam Anders. He found it odd to see the celebrity relaxing with Kara Thrace, of all people, sitting nearly in his arms.

“Not technically,” Anders countered.

“That was laced with ambrosia and you knew it all along,” the woman retorted with a grin, and Felix thought he remembered that her name was Jean Barolay. There’d been a time when even he had read the kind of magazines that gossiped about sports stars.

“Did you lace it?” Anders shot at her, and Felix could see his eyes dance.

“That’s not the point,” put in Rally, when Jean didn’t have an automatic reaction.

Anders barked a laugh. The wolf-whistles and calls of ‘Aw, now who’s busted!’ around the circle reminded Felix of better days. He sat back into his seat.

“Hey, look who made it,” Brendan Costanza said once the noise had died down enough so that the wood crackling could be heard. He leaned over so he could see past the flames. “Gaeta! Now that you’ve left the bridge bunnies for good, you can confess without repercussions. Come on, give us some dirt!”

Felix felt himself fluster.

“Yeah, go on!” Kat called, clapping her hands from where she was using Costanza as a chair.

“Really, you guys have no idea what’s behind their innocent professionalism,” Kara informed the C-bucs she sat by, with a humor that Felix could hear. He almost flushed, because she was right.

“Maybe I don’t want to be on this side,” he called, giving a significant look to Dee.

She laughed and elbowed him. “Felix!”

“We’ll protect you!” Racetrack said, and Costanza beckoned wildly and said right after her, “Come on, come on, we want the dirty stories!”

Felix rose to his feet, unable to keep a slight grin off his face as he crossed the circle, sitting himself between the C-bucs and Galactica’s pilots.

“Hey, can I ask a stupid question?” Anders offered, before Felix had settled down, avoiding the spark that had popped out of the fire with a crack.

“After all these years, you’re still asking that?” Jean said.

“Yeah, nice.” Anders gave her a wry look. “But, uh...bridge bunnies? Is that a reference to—”

“Their stamina?” Kat finished for him with a chortle.

“Damn right,” Narcho called from his blanket on the sand next to Kat and Costanza.

Felix saw Dee’s head plop into her hands and Helo, now sitting by her, pat her back, but the rest of the circle was caught in their own humor too much to notice his own reddening face.

Someone threw another log on the flames as the chortles and catcalls died down, and Felix felt like implication was enough for that aspect. “So, that’s the only party you all know how to have? Telling dirty stories?”

“Well, I think the karaoke machine got nuked,” Kara said snarkily, leaning over Anders towards him.

“Oh right, I forgot that some of us need it,” Felix tossed back at her.

She cackled but didn’t object, though she did toss a pebble at him. The rest of the group seemed caught up in their thoughts for a second, quiet, but with the feeling of relaxation and joy emanating all around.

“Yeah, Felix, you should sing,” Helo suggested.

“Why me?” Felix asked, looking around the circle at the fire-lit faces. He’d expected to attend an evening out, not be called upon to host it. After all, he never had been the sort of person people focused on at parties.

“Because you’re the only one who can do it well, and we haven’t had live music in forever,” Dee said, with a grin as she backed Helo up, legs crossed comfortably.

“Hey, I can sing,” Costanza objected.

“Not sober,” Kat countered, and whacked his shoulder with a snort. He made a little noise and pinched her hip.

“Come on, Felix,” Dee encouraged.

He flushed again, not sure what he was going to do. It wasn’t like he had a repertoire. “Uh, well, I only really can think of one song,” he admitted. “And it’s not the a-cappella kind. ‘Alone She Sleeps’?”

“Ooh,” Dee said disappointedly. “I could do harmony, but not for that.”

“None of us pilots took that Tune Carrying With Buckets 101 class, so we’re sunk there,” Narcho sighed, leaning back against Kat’s knee until she kicked him lightly.

“That song, that’s the old folk song, right?” Anders asked, looking to Felix.

“Yeah,” Felix answered.

“Well, I don’t know the words so well, but I know you can play it with instrumental backing instead of vocals.”

Felix snapped his fingers. “Right, right. But, it’s not like we have instruments.”

“Hold on a second,” Anders said. He all but jumped to his feet, dislodging Kara from her comfortable seat against his shoulder. Without another word, he darted off into the night, towards the tents where the C-bucs were staying.

“He’s terrified of your voice and he hasn’t even heard it,” Kara said dryly. “Great job, Felix.”

“Ha, ha,” Felix said back at her, with a roll of his eyes. “See, I can do immature humor too.”

She grinned catlike at him.

The next couple minutes, there was some hasty rearranging of seats and blankets to make more of a half-circle, easier to see all the way around. Racetrack tussled with Narcho for best spot, and won, leaning against Kat and Costanza’s chair. Anders came running back a few seconds later, and surprised noises came from all around when they saw him gripping the neck of an acoustic guitar.

“Holy frak, where’d you pull that from?” Kat asked automatically, leaning forward.

“Someone gave it to me right after we got to the fleet.” Anders took his seat again. “Said they’d read that one interview where I said I sort of played...you know.”

Felix shifted a little closer to look at the instrument. He raised an eyebrow, looking at the celebrity. “This is beautiful. Must be nice to be you.”

To his surprise, Anders’ twist of the mouth looked rather sheepish.

“I’ll bet you’re glad they didn’t hear that one interview instead, the one almost squashed by the publicists,” Costanza called.

Felix’s brow furrowed, and he knew he was missing something.

“Hey.” Jean bristled.

“No, it’s fine,” Sam said and nudged her arm. “Not like you and the team didn’t give me hell for it too.”

“But we’re allowed to,” Rally said with tight look at him, a dance in her almond-eyes and then a slight challenge for Costanza as she looked across at him.

“What interview?” Felix asked, shaking his head.

“Yeah, go on, Anders, explain yourself to Gaeta—we all want to hear it,” Kat said.

“No, you don’t have to,” Helo said, his team loyalty manifesting as conciliatory in this instant.

“Yes, he does,” Kat retorted. She leaned back a little on Costanza’s lap. “He said he preferred science to winning the game. What the frak?”

“He did not,” Jean told her firmly.

“Hey, ‘he’s’ right here.” Anders waved his hand. “Okay, okay, so it didn’t come out right, I figured that out back then.” A murmur of approval went around the circle, making Felix think that he probably was the only non-pyramid-fan among the group, especially now that a handful of the pilots had wandered away from the bonfire. “I said that pyramid wasn’t about stats for me, but what everyone seems to forget is that I didn’t say they didn’t matter. Just...yes, it’s about more than how many we win.”

“Yeah, and you notice, that was the season we almost made it to the championships,” Jean added for support.

Grudging acceptance sounded around the group. Someone poked the fire.

“So, you were going to sing, right?” Anders asked, looking back at Felix and offering him the guitar.

“I don’t play,” Felix admitted, not taking it from him. He felt himself flustered again, because you didn’t need to be a diehard fan to be flattered by Sam Anders asking you to sing.

“Anyone?” Anders asked, holding up the guitar around the circle. “Come on, really?”

“Arts education sucked, Sam,” Kara told him. “Only band geeks learned instruments.”

“I was not a band geek,” he said, giving her a pointed look.

She chortled. “You can play?” 

“Well, kinda,” Sam admitted. “I can pluck a few strings. But I don’t know the song he wants to do that well, so we’re back to square one.”

Felix sat up, deciding it was more awkward the longer it went. “Hey, I can sing the first part a-cappella, and then you can come in on the second and third repetitions.”

“You’re putting a lot of trust in my improv skills,” Anders warned him with a slight grin, setting the guitar on his lap.

“Tonight’s about fun, right?” Felix answered with a bit of a smile of his own.

It was more than a little gratifying when the entire group quieted down, leaving only the rustle of the logs and flames in the night air. He swallowed, remembering the words, waiting for the notes to come to his throat. Gently—he needed to relax so they would come gently.  
 _  
“Alone she sleeps, in the shirt of man.”_ He thought inwardly of relief when he didn’t crack on even the first line. _“With my three wishes clutched in her hand.”_

He had to swallow again, but the singing was coming easier. His eyes traced the circle and its familiar faces as he continued with the twisting melody.  
 _  
“The first that she be spared the pain  
That comes from a dark and laughing rain  
When she finds love may it always stay true  
This I beg for the second wish I may too”  
_  
His gaze traced back to Anders on his left, and he was glad to see the spark of familiarity in his eye, and his fingers starting to find their places on the guitar. The song was caught in Felix’s chest now, but he didn’t want to continue with it unaccompanied.  
 _  
“But wish no more  
My life you can take  
To have her please just one day wake  
To have her please just one day wake  
To have her please just one day wake”_

Anders brought two dark notes in as Felix finished the last line, and looked up to nod at him.

Feeling somehow more content with this than with anything else he’d done for relaxation in the past months, Felix came into the second verse, the guitar soft and harmoniously backing. His voice rose, the night air whisking some of the resounding notes away, and he felt the tremor of emotion as he came to the chorus again and Anders brought the harmony to chords. He wasn’t perfect at it, but Felix didn’t need that.

Then, as he dove straight into the third rendition, he heard Anders hum, and turned in pleasant surprise to see him start singing the words along with Felix.  
 _  
“The first that she be spared the pain  
That comes from a dark and laughing rain”  
_  
Anders had a nice baritone, a little awkward with the words, but a better sense for vocal harmony than instrumental. He lost focus of the guitar, but the singing sounded better. Felix felt their timing align as they sung into the final chorus:  
 _  
“But wish no more  
My life you can take  
To have her please just one day wake  
To have her please just one day wake”  
_  
He felt a smile on his face; he’d forgotten how good this felt, like the singing washed away so many words he hadn’t wanted to have to say. Their voices quieted together. _“To have her please just one day”_ —a pause— _”wake”  
_  
The last note held, drifting out with the last haunting end of the song.

Felix actually grinned at Anders when the group around them applauded, and Dee whistled appreciatively at him. He bowed over-dramatically, and retook his seat despite Racetrack shouting “Encore!”

“You are really good,” Anders said, nodding his head towards Felix.

“Thanks,” Felix said, surprised by the sincerity and wondering if his cynical view of the well-known people who survived was really all that accurate. “Likewise, you know.”

“Yeah, Sam,” Kara said, elbowing him.

“Yeah,” repeated Jean. “You’ve been holding out on us, T.”

“No,” Sam said quickly. “No, I wasn’t.”

“So you want to do another one,” Felix asked, feeling mischievous.

“Do it!” called Dee and Rally at the same time.

“Coward,” Kara mocked as Sam shook his head resolutely.

“...Don’t say that,” he murmured with a sudden look in his eyes towards her. He pulled the guitar into position, dancing his eyebrows, and started strumming a few notes.

Felix leaned in, finding it hard to believe that only a few cups of alcohol could be seen around the circle. This was nice, and he wondered if Gaius might not have been wrong with his idea. There were worse things to associate with a new planet.

Anders cleared his throat as amused chuckles accompanied his backing chords, generic, but effective.

Then titters ran around the ring as his voice started crooning as he looked towards Kara, _“Well, you done done me and you bet I felt it, I tried to be chill but you’re so hot that I melted.”_

Kara choked loudly, and Felix felt a tickle of laughter in his throat. Anders kept at the tuneful words, and Jean Barolay stopped trying to hold back her mocking hysterical laughter.

“No, stop! Now,” protested Kara, without result, as Jean laughed too hard and fell with a thump to the sand.  
 _  
“Before the cool done run out I'll be giving it my bestest, and nothing's gonna stop me but divine intervention,”_ Anders sung with an attempt at innocent emotion, until Kara wrenched the guitar from his hands with a horrified look—but a laugh gurgling at the back of her throat.

The other pilots were cheering raucously, clapping their hands and hooting, though Felix wasn’t sure if it was for Anders’ stunt or Rally helping Jean back into her seat, still helplessly giggling.

Anders’ singing voice broke into a laugh of his own, as Kara finally grinned and shoved him.

“See?” he called out, waving his hand at the group with exaggerated smugness.

“Come on, Felix, I’ve got one,” Dee said, jumping to her feet, looking happier than Felix had seen her in a while. “And Helo, you too, it’s not like this needs a tune, and you sure have experience in the subject.”

“What?” Felix asked, as he rose to join Dee on one side of the circle.

Her hands clasped eagerly and a wide smile crossed her face. Felix felt like maybe he should remind her about her psuedo-promise at the start of the evening, but she gave him a look and then launched right in. _“What do you do with a drunken pilot?”  
_  
Felix groaned, but Helo caught up with her on the second repetition. _“What do you do with a drunken pilot?”  
_  
Then, because it was turning into that kind of night, Felix sighed and joined in loudly, _“What do you do with a drunken pilot early in the morning?”_

They all started tapping their feet in rhythm. _“Weigh, hey, and up he rises; weigh, hey, and up she rises; weigh, hey, and up he rises, early in the morning.”  
_  
Felix could barely hear his own voice standing out among them as the other pilots stood up, ignoring the irony and roaring out the words even if the notes were lost. Feet stamping, hands clapping, emotion more than music making them glad to be alive, they all barked out the bar tune to the starry skies.

He turned to grin at Dee as the verses went on, and she raised her eyebrow and at the end of the sixth one she shouted out, _“Lock ‘em in a room with th’ Commander’s son!”_

The crowd gleefully picked up the teasing lyric, _“Lock ‘em in a room with th’ Commander’s son; lock ‘em in a room with th’ Commander’s son, early in the morning!”_

“Is that a hint, Dee?” Costanza called loudly as they dove back into the chorus.

Felix laughed at Dee’s face then, crinkling with embarrassment before singing as loudly as she could. The Resistance had picked up on the tune by now, even if the words were military, and soon the ground fairly trembled with the beat of their feet as they carried it into the final two verses.

The song finished with a cheer and a shout, fists punching the air. Some of them spun around before taking their seats again with a laugh, and Dee joined Felix on his side as they all caught their breath.

“Does this happen a lot?” Jean asked.

“Usually not without a lot of booze.” Kara chuckled, face almost glowing.

“Well hey, we can’t let it finish on that,” Helo protested. “Come on, we need a ballad or something to finish off the trio.”

“Gaeta,” Racetrack said, elongating the word and raising an eyebrow.

“She’s right, it’s back to you,” Narcho said. “Or Anders, I guess.”

“No, no, no,” Jean and Kara protested at the same time, Jean with leftover giggles still.

“I only know the light songs anyway.” Anders shrugged the suggestion off.

Felix looked around the group, breathing in and thinking of nothing in particular.

“Aww, come on, Felix, give us another treat,” Kat encouraged.

“Yeah, I doubt there’ll be another opportunity like this once everything’s set up.” Costanza sat up a little straighter. “Unless Baltar likes to sing in the shower.”

“Ooh, ooh, did not need that image,” Dee moaned, waving her hand in front of her eyes.

Helo laughed loudly, but also repeated the call for Felix to sing.

Felix started to stammer a denial, that he’d already sung the only one he could pull up on the fly. The atmosphere had gotten to him, though, and he was in the sort of mood where he might end up sharing all his secrets. “Well, maybe I have something.”

Calls of ‘Yes!’ and ‘Go on!’ only made him more carefree, unsurprisingly.

“But I’m going to need help,” he said, looking to Anders as he tried to finalize his choice. It had just been a poem once, and the music had come later. He’d never actually performed it, not even for himself. Hummed it, yes, and sung it in his head, dozens of times. This would be different. “It’s a song I wrote.”

Anders’ eyebrows rose. “You know, I’m enjoying the frak out of all this, but you seriously need someone else, man.”

Felix shook his head. “No, no, I’m doing this now, and I know what you can do. You were great with the first one.”

“Better than you thought I’d be, maybe,” Anders said pointedly. “Not great.”

“No, T, he’s not far off,” Jean said, slapping his leg from where she had moved her seat to the sandy ground. “Go on, you can do it.”

“Here,” Felix said, digging in his pocket for a little notebook and a half-size pen. He went back to his chair and used the hard seat to mark down the few chords that he knew, from what little he understood of music, would be necessary. Then he frowned and wondered something. “Hang on a moment,” he said, indicating the entire circle.

Feeling overenthusiastic but committed, he gave the chord notes to Anders and ran back to the Raptor. He was a good speed typist, and had the lyrics in the computer after only a couple minutes, and printed out just after that. He was insane for doing this, but he didn’t care.

No one was quite impatient once he came back, and hearing Anders plucking at the strings made his heart swell, because he’d always wanted to do something like this.

“You don’t have to sing along,” he said to Anders, handing him the paper. “But if you catch the tune, you know...”

“Sure,” said Anders, grinning at him.

Felix smiled back, a little awkward in his excitement, and then cleared his throat. The first few lines he’d have to try a-cappella, until Anders heard the timing and progression...assuming this worked.  
 _  
“Oh the time will come up when the winds will stop  
And the breeze will cease to be breathing  
Like the stillness in the wind ‘fore the hurricane begins,  
The hour when the ship comes in”_

He nodded to Anders, then carried on. _“And the seas will split, and the ship will hit, and the sands on the shoreline will be shaking/Then the tide will sound, and the wind will pound, and the morning will be breaking.”_ Somehow he managed to make the last word roll and ripple with the tune he’d only imagined before.

Anders had the music now, playing the few rough chords with firm fingers, back and forth until the rhythm started bouncing with the tune.

Gaeta let his voice ring out, remembering childhood tales and experiences that could never mean anything again, except maybe, maybe, on this planet. Maybe on this world, where ground and ocean existed, where breezes blew and where stars had a different purpose. He sang, and a desperate hope that this place was right for them filled him more than it ever had before.  
 _  
“Then the sands will roll out a carpet of gold  
For your weary toes to be a-touching  
And the ship's wise men will remind you once again  
That the whole wide world is watching.”_

Then Anders’ clear voice joined in and he looked up from his guitar to meet Gaeta’s eyes. Gaeta stumbled over a few words as a smile overtook his face, but it didn’t matter, nor did the few notes of harmony that Anders got off key, because their voices were moving on the same line. They weren’t cynical enough for this fleet, or maybe they were what the fleet needed to learn something other than cynicism. But in this moment, it was just the music, and the sounds blended together as they sang into the night.  
 _  
“Oh the foes will rise, with the sleep in their eyes  
And they'll jerk from their beds and think they're dreaming  
But they'll pinch themselves and squeal and know that it's for real  
The hour that the ship comes in._

 _Then they'll raise their hands, saying we'll meet all your demands  
But we'll shout from the bow ‘your days are numbered’  
And like Icara's tribe they'll be drowned in the tide  
And like Koboli, they'll be conquered.”_

They finished—Felix let his final note drift and Anders flicked his fingers in a final quick-repeat of the last chord, keeping his hand away from the guitar so that the resonance echoed out.

The clapping was quieter this time, but the meaning behind it struck Felix as he stood, and somehow it had been better than he imagined because it wasn’t just about him. Pilots, bridge-bunnies, resistance fighters, all of them, that was what it meant. Even Costanza just had a sort of happiness on his face, devoid of any teasing, as he clapped broadly. Dee almost squealed as she hopped up to clap louder, grinning like a fool, and Felix smiled, but stretched out his hand for Anders.

“Again, I have to say, you’re good,” he admitted, shaking the tall man’s hand.

“I don’t see how anyone could mess that up,” Anders admitted back to him. “Incredible work.”

Even Kara didn’t say a word or give a look to the contrary, Felix noticed. “Guess I was lucky, since it’s my only one,” he said. The appreciation made him embarrassed again.

It had been a good choice to finish the music aspect, and Felix was glad to fade from focus as he took his seat again. There was a good reason that, while he liked parties, he didn’t attend them all that often. He lost track of the rest of the entertainment that night, caught up in the mood and the memories and silent thoughts.

The moon shifted overhead, ever closer to setting as the night wore on. More laughter went around as the fire died down, as the mosquitoes started to annoy, and as people got punchier and punchier. Eventually heads started drooping and nodding, and Narcho snored as he leaned against Kat’s leg. The last story ended as Felix started to yawn, and someone said they should all start heading back.

“Can I catch a ride with you?” Helo asked Dee as they all started standing up. “I can just grab my bag.”

“Sure,” she said.

Felix felt a little warm, so he didn’t wait the minute, but started walking off into the night.

“Hey, Felix, right?”

He turned around to see Sam Anders coming up to him. “Yeah, Felix Gaeta. What is it?”

“Nothing much,” Anders said, gesturing that he could continue walking. They walked together the few yards towards the Raptor. “Just, I wanted to say thanks. You know that weird lost feeling you get when you’re just coming into a new group?”

“Actually, I almost have that all the time,” Felix admitted.

“Oh, yeah, so you know what I mean,” Anders said, nodding. He paused for words as they walked, hands vaguely twisting as he thought. “It wasn’t so bad tonight, for me. I almost forgot everything when I was singing, and that...you have no idea how much forgetting means.” He nodded shortly to Felix, eyes straight.

“I can guess a little,” Felix said quietly.

“Also, I think that’s the first time since I got here where people stopped trying to make me their symbol of hope,” Anders said with a grimace on the last word. “I’ve you to thank for that—so thanks again.”

Felix smiled as he got to the Raptor. “No problem.”

“You’re a government official, right?” Anders asked.

Felix turned and nodded.

“I think that’s a good thing for us,” Anders said, almost as much to himself as to Felix. He reached out his hand, and Felix took it without a second thought. “Great to meet you.”

 “You too,” Felix said, shaking back firmly.

Anders—Sam—walked off back towards his team and Kara, still by the blackened wood and embers. Helo and Dee passed him, bundling into the Raptor as Felix took the pilot’s seat.

He managed to get them back up to Galactica even while tired, unloading with several others in the hangar bay as all the pilots returned. As he said goodbye to both his fellow travelers, he was surprised to find that he fully meant what he said:

“Worth the waste of wood,” he told Dee with a soft smile.

She smiled. “Bonfires always are.”

Tomorrow, he thought, finally slumping into his bunk with a calm but yawning sigh, the work wouldn’t seem so thankless. Maybe it wasn’t wise to put all his hopes onto this one scheme, but Felix could find time to regret that later.

Right now, New Caprica was just right.

~

(Apologies to [Bear McCreary](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxjGOSmH6kw), [Jason Mraz](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkHTsc9PU2A), [Captain Tractor/Anonymous](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uluNnu3h2a8), and [Bob Dylan](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrk25hHEb4A), for hijacking their songs, which can be heard at the links. Canon did it first, though. ;-P)  



End file.
